EU efforts to ban Huawei from 5G networks won the backing of a top court advisor Thursday, in a legal opinion that is likely to galvanize security hawks seeking to restrict Chinese tech in Europe. A lawyer for the EU’s top court in Luxembourg said rules blocking telecom operators from using risky suppliers can be set by the EU, not just national governments. They also said telecom operators don’t need to be compensated for the cost of replacing Huawei equipment. It’s a blow for Europe’s telecom giants, which have pushed back against banning China’s Huawei from 5G procurement and have told EU officials that large-scale bans are an “act of self-harm” that could even bring down networks. It is a win for China hawks, who have fought to impose tougher measures against Huawei — with strong backing from Washington. The EU has spent years trying to persuade national governments to voluntarily kick out Huawei and ZTE over concerns that their presence in European telecom networks could enable large-scale spying and surveillance by the Chinese government. It is now working on broader rules that seek to reduce the bloc’s reliance on foreign “high-risk” suppliers and limit foreign government control over its digital networks. The case was brought by Estonian telecom operator Elisa, which is seeking compensation for the costs of removing Huawei and is challenging whether the EU has the competence to ask for restrictions on Chinese vendors. Thursday’s opinion said national security authorities can follow EU guidance when imposing bans on Huawei. The Court of Justice is expected to issue its final ruling on the case later this year, and may take the opinion from Advocate General Tamara Ćapet into account. Laszlo Toth, head of Europe at global telecom lobby association GSMA, said in reaction that “blanket rip-and-replace mandates are an unreasonable approach to what is a highly nuanced situation.” The industry considers national security measures should remain the responsibility of national governments, he said. Huawei said the opinion “recognizes that all restrictive measures with regards to telecom equipment must be subject to judicial review, under a strict standard of proportionality” and that “decisions cannot rest on general suspicion … but must be based on a specific assessment.” “We expect EU or national restrictions to be scrutinized under this principle,” Huawei said. BOON FOR BRUSSELS Progress towards an EU-wide ban has been sluggish, with many national governments dragging their feet, in part due to fears of Chinese trade retaliation. European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen told POLITICO in January that she is “not satisfied” with voluntary efforts by EU capitals to kick out Huawei. The EU executive now wants binding rules, laid out in a proposal in January. Large telecom players in Europe have pushed back hard against restrictions on Huawei, arguing that blocking risky vendors is a national security measure — an area handled exclusively by national governments. Efforts to clamp down on risky vendors should respect “the competence of member states for national security matters,” industry group Connect Europe said in January. Thursday’s opinion suggests operators will have a harder time fighting the bans.  It also bodes badly for operators hoping to get compensated for ripping out Huawei equipment. Many have sought financial support and compensation for the measures, which they say add massive unexpected costs to network rollouts. The EU executive previously estimated that phasing out “specific high-risk equipment” would cost between €3.4 billion and €4.3 billion per year for three years. Only if the burden for replacing Huawei is “disproportionately heavy,” could telcos seek compensation, according to the opinion. Elisa said it welcomed the legal recommendation that all decisions made on the grounds of national security should still be subject to judicial review. It said the restrictions in Estonia “amounted to a deprivation of its ownership rights … as the impacted equipment has become unusable” and that Elisa “already swapped the majority of its network equipment to Nokia.” Chinese vendor ZTE, the smaller rival of Huawei, did not respond to a request for comment. Mathieu Pollet contributed reporting.

Anton, a 44-year-old Russian soldier who heads a workshop responsible for repairing and supplying drones, was at his kitchen table when he learned last month that Elon Musk’s SpaceX had cut off access to Starlink terminals used by Russian forces. He scrambled for alternatives, but none offered unlimited internet, data plans were restrictive, and coverage did not extend to the areas of Ukraine where his unit operated. It’s not only American tech executives who are narrowing communications options for Russians. Days later, Russian authorities began slowing down access nationwide to the messaging app Telegram, the service that frontline troops use to coordinate directly with one another and bypass slower chains of command. “All military work goes through Telegram — all communication,” Anton, whose name has been changed because he fears government reprisal, told POLITICO in voice messages sent via the app. “That would be like shooting the entire Russian army in the head.” Telegram would be joining a home screen’s worth of apps that have become useless to Russians. Kremlin policymakers have already blocked or limited access to WhatsApp, along with parent company Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, Microsoft’s LinkedIn, Google’s YouTube, Apple’s FaceTime, Snapchat and X, which like SpaceX is owned by Musk. Encrypted messaging apps Signal and Discord, as well as Japanese-owned Viber, have been inaccessible since 2024. Last month, President Vladimir Putin signed a law requiring telecom operators to block cellular and fixed internet access at the request of the Federal Security Service. Shortly after it took effect on March 3, Moscow residents reported widespread problems with mobile internet, calls and text messages across all major operators for several days, with outages affecting mobile service and Wi-Fi even inside the State Duma. Those decisions have left Russians increasingly cut off from both the outside world and one another, complicating battlefield coordination and disrupting online communities that organize volunteer aid, fundraising and discussion of the war effort. Deepening digital isolation could turn Russia into something akin to “a large, nuclear-armed North Korea and a junior partner to China,” according to Alexander Gabuev, the Berlin-based director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. In April, the Kremlin is expected to escalate its campaign against Telegram — already one of Russia’s most popular messaging platforms, but now in the absence of other social-media options, a central hub for news, business and entertainment. It may block the platform altogether. That is likely to fuel an escalating struggle between state censorship and the tools people use to evade it, with Russia’s place in the world hanging in the balance. “It’s turned into a war,” said Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the internet Protection Society, a digital rights group that monitors Russia’s censorship infrastructure. “A guerrilla war. They hunt down the VPNs they can see, they block them — and the ‘partisans’ run, build new bunkers, and come back.” THE APP THAT RUNS THE WAR On Feb. 4, SpaceX tightened the authentication system that Starlink terminals use to connect to its satellite network, introducing stricter verification for registered devices. The change effectively blocked many terminals operated by Russian units relying on unauthorized connections, cutting Starlink traffic inside Ukraine by roughly 75 percent, according to internet traffic analysis by Doug Madory, an analyst at the U.S. network monitoring firm Kentik. The move threw Russian operations into disarray, allowing Ukraine to make battlefield gains. Russia has turned to a workaround widely used before satellite internet was an option: laying fiber-optic lines, from rear areas toward frontline battlefield positions. Until then, Starlink terminals had allowed drone operators to stream live video through platforms such as Discord, which is officially blocked in Russia but still sometimes used by the Russian military via VPNs, to commanders at multiple levels. A battalion commander could watch an assault unfold in real time and issue corrections — “enemy ahead” or “turn left” — via radio or Telegram. What once required layers of approval could now happen in minutes. Satellite-connected messaging apps became the fastest way to transmit coordinates, imagery and targeting data. But on Feb. 10, Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications regulator, began slowing down Telegram for users across Russia, citing alleged violations of Russian law. Russian news outlet RBC reported, citing two sources, that authorities plan to shut down Telegram in early April — though not on the front line. In mid-February, Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev said the government did not yet intend to restrict Telegram at the front but hoped servicemen would gradually transition to other platforms. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said this week the company could avoid a full ban by complying with Russian legislation and maintaining what he described as “flexible contact” with authorities. Roskomnadzor has accused Telegram of failing to protect personal data, combat fraud and prevent its use by terrorists and criminals. Similar accusations have been directed at other foreign tech platforms. In 2022, a Russian court designated Meta an “extremist organization” after the company said it would temporarily allow posts calling for violence against Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine war — a decision authorities used to justify blocking Facebook and Instagram in Russia and increasing pressure on the company’s other services, including WhatsApp. Telegram founder Pavel Durov, a Russian-born entrepreneur now based in the United Arab Emirates, says the throttiling is being used as a pretext to push Russians toward a government-controlled messaging app designed for surveillance and political censorship. That app is MAX, which was launched in March 2025 and has been compared to China’s WeChat in its ambition to anchor a domestic digital ecosystem. Authorities are increasingly steering Russians toward MAX through employers, neighborhood chats and the government services portal Gosuslugi — where citizens retrieve documents, pay fines and book appointments — as well as through banks and retailers. The app’s developer, VK, reports rapid user growth, though those figures are difficult to independently verify. “They didn’t just leave people to fend for themselves — you could say they led them by the hand through that adaptation by offering alternatives,” said Levada Center pollster Denis Volkov, who has studied Russian attitudes toward technology use. The strategy, he said, has been to provide a Russian or state-backed alternative for the majority, while stopping short of fully criminalizing workarounds for more technologically savvy users who do not want to switch. Elena, a 38-year-old Yekaterinburg resident whose surname has been withheld because she fears government reprisal, said her daughter’s primary school moved official communication from WhatsApp to MAX without consulting parents. She keeps MAX installed on a separate tablet that remains mostly in a drawer — a version of what some Russians call a “MAXophone,” gadgets solely for that app, without any other data being left on those phones for the (very real) fear the government could access it. “It works badly. Messages are delayed. Notifications don’t come,” she said. “I don’t trust it … And this whole situation just makes people angry.” THE VPN ARMS RACE Unlike China’s centralized “Great Firewall,” which filters traffic at the country’s digital borders, Russia’s system operates internally. Internet providers are required to route traffic through state-installed deep packet inspection equipment capable of controlling and analyzing data flows in real time. “It’s not one wall,” Klimarev said. “It’s thousands of fences. You climb one, then there’s another.” The architecture allows authorities to slow services without formally banning them — a tactic used against YouTube before its web address was removed from government-run domain-name servers last month. Russian law explicitly provides government authority for blocking websites on grounds such as extremism, terrorism, illegal content or violations of data regulations, but it does not clearly define throttling — slowing traffic rather than blocking it outright — as a formal enforcement mechanism. “The slowdown isn’t described anywhere in legislation,” Klimarev said. “It’s pressure without procedure.” In September, Russia banned advertising for virtual private network services that citizens use to bypass government-imposed restrictions on certain apps or sites. By Klimarev’s estimate, roughly half of Russian internet users now know what a VPN is, and millions pay for one. Polling last year by the Levada Center, Russia’s only major independent pollster, suggests regular use is lower, finding about one-quarter of Russians said they have used VPN services. Russian courts can treat the use of anonymization tools as an aggravating factor in certain crimes — steps that signal growing pressure on circumvention technologies without formally outlawing them. In February, the Federal Antimonopoly Service opened what appears to be the first case against a media outlet for promoting a VPN after the regional publication Serditaya Chuvashiya advertised such a service on its Telegram channel. Surveys in recent years have shown that many Russians, particularly older citizens, support tighter internet regulation, often citing fraud, extremism and online safety. That sentiment gives authorities political space to tighten controls even when the restrictions are unpopular among more technologically savvy users. Even so, the slowdown of Telegram drew criticism from unlikely quarters, including Sergei Mironov, a longtime Kremlin ally and leader of the Just Russia party. In a statement posted on his Telegram channel on Feb. 11, he blasted the regulators behind the move as “idiots,” accusing them of undermining soldiers at the front. He said troops rely on the app to communicate with relatives and organize fundraising for the war effort, warning that restricting it could cost lives. While praising the state-backed messaging app MAX, he argued that Russians should be free to choose which platforms they use. Pro-war Telegram channels frame the government’s blocking techniques as sabotage of the war effort. Ivan Philippov, who tracks Russia’s influential military bloggers, said the reaction inside that ecosystem to news about Telegram has been visceral “rage.” Unlike Starlink, whose cutoff could be blamed on a foreign company, restrictions on Telegram are viewed as self-inflicted. Bloggers accuse regulators of undermining the war effort. Telegram is used not only for battlefield coordination but also for volunteer fundraising networks that provide basic logistics the state does not reliably cover — from transport vehicles and fuel to body armor, trench materials and even evacuation equipment. Telegram serves as the primary hub for donations and reporting back to supporters. “If you break Telegram inside Russia, you break fundraising,” Philippov said. “And without fundraising, a lot of units simply don’t function.” Few in that community trust MAX, citing technical flaws and privacy concerns. Because MAX operates under Russian data-retention laws and is integrated with state services, many assume their communications would be accessible to authorities. Philippov said the app’s prominent defenders are largely figures tied to state media or the presidential administration. “Among independent military bloggers, I haven’t seen a single person who supports it,” he said. Small groups of activists attempted to organize rallies in at least 11 Russian cities, including Moscow, Irkutsk and Novosibirsk, in defense of Telegram. Authorities rejected or obstructed most of the proposed demonstrations — in some cases citing pandemic-era restrictions, weather conditions or vague security concerns — and in several cases revoked previously issued permits. In Novosibirsk, police detained around 15 people ahead of a planned rally. Although a small number of protests were formally approved, no large-scale demonstrations ultimately took place. THE POWER TO PULL THE PLUG The new law signed last month allows Russia’s Federal Security Service to order telecom operators to block cellular and fixed internet access. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said subsequent shutdowns of service in Moscow were linked to security measures aimed at protecting critical infrastructure and countering drone threats, adding that such limitations would remain in place “for as long as necessary.” In practice, the disruptions rarely amount to a total communications blackout. Most target mobile internet rather than all services, while voice calls and SMS often continue to function. Some domestic websites and apps — including government portals or banking services — may remain accessible through “whitelists,” meaning authorities allow certain services to keep operating even while broader internet access is restricted. The restrictions are typically localized and temporary, affecting specific regions or parts of cities rather than the entire country. Internet disruptions have increasingly become a tool of control beyond individual platforms. Research by the independent outlet Meduza and the monitoring project Na Svyazi has documented dozens of regional internet shutdowns and mobile network restrictions across Russia, with disruptions occurring regularly since May 2025. The communications shutdown, and uncertainty around where it will go next, is affecting life for citizens of all kinds, from the elderly struggling to contact family members abroad to tech-savvy users who juggle SIM cards and secondary phones to stay connected. Demand has risen for dated communication devices — including walkie-talkies, pagers and landline phones — along with paper maps as mobile networks become less reliable, according to retailers interviewed by RBC. “It feels like we’re isolating ourselves,” said Dmitry, 35, who splits his time between Moscow and Dubai and whose surname has been withheld to protect his identity under fear of governmental reprisal. “Like building a sovereign grave.” Those who track Russian public opinion say the pattern is consistent: irritation followed by adaptation. When Instagram and YouTube were blocked or slowed in recent years, their audiences shrank rapidly as users migrated to alternative services rather than mobilizing against the restrictions. For now, Russia’s digital tightening resembles managed escalation rather than total isolation. Officials deny plans for a full shutdown, and even critics say a complete severing would cripple banking, logistics and foreign trade. “It’s possible,” Klimarev said. “But if they do that, the internet won’t be the main problem anymore.”

Chinese technology giant Huawei is participating in 16 projects funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe research and innovation program despite being dubbed a high-risk supplier. The Commission restricted Huawei from accessing Horizon projects in 2023 after saying that it (and another Chinese telecom supplier, ZTE) posed “materially higher risks than other 5G suppliers” in relation to cybersecurity and foreign influence. However, public data reviewed by POLITICO’s EU Influence newsletter shows that Huawei still takes part in several projects, many of which are in sensitive fields like cloud computing, 5G and 6G telecom technology and data centers. These projects mean Huawei has been working alongside universities and tech companies in Spain, France, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Finland and Italy. It also has access to the intellectual property generated by the projects, as the contracts require the sharing of information as well as joint ownership of the results between partners. A Commission spokesperson confirmed that of the 16 projects, 15 were signed before the restrictions took place. The remaining project “was signed in 2025 and was assessed as falling outside the scope of the existing restrictions.” Many of the projects started in January 2023, with the contracts running out at the end of this year, while others will last until 2027, 2028 and 2030. “Huawei participates in and implements projects funded under Horizon Europe in a lawful and compliant manner,” a company spokesperson said. One of the projects is to develop data privacy and protection tools in the fields of AI and big data, along with Italy’s National Research Council, the University of Malaga, the University of Toulouse, the University of Calabria, and a Bavarian high-tech research institute for software-intensive systems. Huawei received €207,000 to lead the work on “design, implementation, and evaluation of use cases,” according to the contract for that project, seen by POLITICO. COMMISSION CRACKDOWN Last month the Commission proposed a new Cybersecurity Act that would restrict Huawei from critical telecoms networks under EU law, after years of asking national capitals to do so voluntarily. “I’m not satisfied [with] how the member states … have been implementing our 5G Toolbox,” the Commission’s executive VP for tech and security policy, Henna Virkkunen, told POLITICO at the time, referring to EU guidelines to deal with high-risk vendors. “We know that we still have high-risk vendors in our 5G networks, in the critical parts … so now we will have stricter rules on this.” The Commission is also working on measures to cut Chinese companies out of lucrative public contracts. Bart Groothuis, a liberal MEP working on the Cybersecurity Act, told POLITICO that the Commission should “honor the promises and commitments” it made “and push them out.” “They should be barred from participating. Period.” Huawei was also involved in an influence scandal last year, with Belgian authorities investigating whether the tech giant exerted undue influence over EU lawmakers. The scandal led to Huawei’s being banned from lobbying on the premises of the European Commission and the European Parliament.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. Her new book, Undersea War, is out later this year. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a thoughtful and stirring speech at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, speaking of “a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” Though he didn’t mention the U.S. by name, it was clear Washington’s recent behavior had driven him to this conclusion. The speech didn’t please U.S. President Donald Trump, who went on to call Carney ungrateful and threatened to impose 100-percent tariffs on Canada if it struck a trade deal with China — even though Washington itself has been conducting a series of trade talks with Beijing. Trump appears willing to harm America’s allies in ways that once seemed inconceivable, and threats — as we’ve learned — are his way, with many of them are directed at allies. The threat against Canada, for example, came just days after Trump reminded luminaries at the World Economic Forum in Davos that he was very serious about annexing Greenland. And that was after he’d threatened new U.S. tariffs against European nations voicing support for Denmark. Tariffs for European friends are, of course, already a reality. In late January, the U.S. president told an interviewer he imposed 39 percent tariffs on Switzerland after its president “rubbed me the wrong way.” All of this is why we need to start looking somewhere we haven’t had to before: at the bottom of the ocean, at undersea cables — more specifically, at the U.S. firms owning undersea cables. Google & Co. aren’t just tech giants, they’re now cable giants too. And if the White House were to instruct them to disconnect the nations it wanted to hurt, those countries would find themselves in very serious trouble. The speech didn’t please U.S. President Donald Trump, who went on to call Mark Carney ungrateful and threatened to impose 100-percent tariffs on Canada if it struck a trade deal with China. | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images Back in the 1850s, when undersea telegraph cables were first invented, they were owned by a small number of pioneering private companies. Because the prospect of international telegraph traffic was enormously appealing, a couple of them managed to attract government backing for their more audacious undertakings. Later on, as cable traffic developed and grew, it mostly became the domain of state-owned postal services, since they were also in charge of telegraph services. And when undersea telephone cables arrived in the mid-20th century, they were mostly helmed by government-owned telephone companies. Nowadays, we have several hundred data cables on the seabed because that’s how the Internet travels. For decades, telephone companies around the world teamed up to buy and operate them. More recently, however, tech companies, television providers and a whole host of other companies solely in the business of owning and operating subsea cables have also joined in. Since undersea cables are expensive and — for the most part — connect two or more countries, such international consortia make sense. Unsurprisingly, some of these consortium participants are American. But these days, some of the most powerful cables being installed have only one kind of owner: a U.S. tech giant. Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft already co-own numerous subsea cables with other firms, but now they’re striking out on their own: Google, the leader of the pack, already operates a cable connecting South Carolina with Bermuda and Portugal, and it’s about to add more, including the only cable connecting Florida and Europe. Amazon will be the sole owner of a new cable connecting Ireland and the U.S., and Meta is working on Waterworth — a massive 50,000-kilometer cable circling the globe. These wealthy firms indisputably have the money, and their assumption that AI will further accelerate data use is also beyond argument. The tricky part is the state of the world. Back in the 1850s, when undersea telegraph cables were first invented, they were owned by a small number of pioneering private companies. | The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images Subsea cables functioned swimmingly during the harmonious post-Cold War years because nations were eager to get along and increase prosperity. In the past three years, however, we’ve received regular and dramatic reminders that people, perhaps at the behest of a hostile state, can damage these cables. That’s why we need to worry about the prospect of a new geopolitical risk on the seabed — the risk that a country may decide to harm other nations by exploiting the cables’ ownership. China and the U.S. already lean on their cable owners not to connect any upcoming cables with the respective other country. And while many Western nations have grown wary of close ties with China, Trump’s recent conduct suggests they should be concerned about data-cable dependence on the U.S. as well. U.S. cable owners are in the business of business, not geopolitics. But if the U.S. president, perhaps enraged by the comments of a European leader, were to tell tech giants to block the continent from the cables they own or co-own, would they really defy his instructions? Based on their behavior leading up to Trump’s second inauguration — where the CEOs of Amazon, Meta and Google stood behind him at the ceremony — it’s safe to say the answer is a likely “no.” European banks and officials are already thinking along such lines when it comes to the dominance of U.S. payment cards like Visa. They have, according to the Financial Times, “become increasingly concerned that US payment companies’ power could be weaponised in the event of a serious breakdown in relations.” Indeed, on Feb. 19,  Britain’s banking bosses will meet to discuss a U.K. alternative. It would be privately owned and backed by the government, the Guardian reports. On the seabed, we also need to prepare accordingly. That includes helping European companies form alliances that can compete with the Silicon Valley hegemons-in-waiting.

BERLIN — China was once the promised land for German industry. Now it’s a massive strategic headache for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who departs on his inaugural visit to Beijing on Tuesday. For years, Berlin was the driving force behind closer EU relations with China — brushing aside human rights concerns to lobby for a landmark investment deal in 2020. Closer trade relations with China, German leaders argued, would have a moderating effect on the regime in Beijing, a justification encapsulated with the mantra Wandel durch Handel, or change through trade. For a long time, it was also good for business. Germany was one of the few EU countries to run surpluses with Beijing, supplying the vital components and machinery that fueled China’s economic ascent. Its industrial giants like carmaker Volkswagen and chemical company like BASF made huge investments to harness the Chinese market. But that all-in approach to China now increasingly appears to be a historic policy miscalculation on par with Germany’s misguided energy dependence on Russia before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine four years ago. In public, Merz hasn’t admitted the scale of the challenge. Last week, he told fellow conservatives that he is traveling to China to forge closer cooperation. “We have a strategic interest in finding partners around the world who think like us, who act like us,” he said. But many German industry leaders are now urging the chancellor to take a far tougher line and are howling over what they call the “China shock.” Since the Covid pandemic, the trade relationship has flipped to an eye-watering deficit — €90 billion in 2025 — and China is widely blamed for much of the hemorrhaging of jobs in Germany’s all-important manufacturing sector — now running at roughly 10,000 job losses per month. Frustratingly for the reflexive transatlanticist Merz, pivoting to President Donald Trump’s U.S., which is locked in an unpredictable tariff showdown with Europe, is hardly a viable option. That means Merz has to find some way to engage with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Jörg Wuttke, a long-time China watcher who briefed the chancellor on Feb. 17 ahead of his visit, said he was surprised by how “well prepared he was.” For close to two hours, Merz took notes from a group of six China experts, saying little beyond asking questions. His priority, Wuttke said, was conveying the problems in a way that would connect with Xi. “He realizes he is possibly the most important politician for China in Europe,” Wuttke said. But China seems to have the best cards. Germany has over time become reliant on critical raw materials imported from China, giving Beijing the power to shut down German plants almost at will even as Berlin tries to pursue a longer term policy of reducing such dependencies or “de-risking.” That goal will take years to realize, however. By then, a growing number of German industry leaders are arguing, much of the damage will have been inflicted as German companies buckle due to massive Chinese price advantages resulting from subsidies, deliberate dumping and an undervalued currency. Merz himself admits that Germany should hold no “illusions” about China and its ambition to “define a new multilateral order according to its own rules.” “Merz is going at the worst possible time in terms of the impact of the China shock on the German economy,” said Andrew Small, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The numbers are obviously absolutely horrible, with no projection that they’ll get better.” WHO HAS THE LEVERAGE? In many ways, the trip will look like those taken by chancellors in the past, when China’s vast and fast-growing market was considered the hope of German industry. Merz is traveling with a delegation of some two-dozen business executives. Over the course of three days, with stops in Beijing and the tech hub of Hangzhou, he will dine with Xi and visit the Forbidden City as well as outposts of Mercedes Benz and Siemens Energy. But few expect any sweeping deals will be reached. German industry leaders are instead calling for more concrete and immediate progress to improve their circumstances. “Our companies are coming under increasing pressure because key competitive conditions are being systematically distorted,” Thilo Brodtmann, the managing director of VDMA, said in a statement ahead of Merz’s trip. As a consequence, he said, German machinery exports to China fell by 8.5 percent during the first 11 months of last year, while machinery imports from China rose by 12.5 percent. Brodtmann called on the chancellor to address Chinese export controls on rare earths and to end China’s practice of subsidizing loss-making “zombie companies” that offer cut-rate prices. “German companies are not competing with other companies, but with the Chinese treasury,” he said of subsidies more broadly. The most powerful tool Merz has at his disposal is China’s growing dependence on the European market, which only increased as Chinese domestic demand has fallen. For Merz, a longtime free-trade purist, a push to threaten defensive tariffs within the framework of the EU is not only anathema — it’s potentially reckless at time when Germany is also dealing with the fallout of Trump’s trade wars. Trump’s attempt to confront China also provides something of a cautionary tale. In the midst of a trade feud between the U.S and China last year, Beijing announced sweeping export controls on rare-earth magnets and the raw materials needed to make them. Weeks later, Trump and Xi reached a detente, with Beijing agreeing to delay rare earth export restrictions for one year. But Nicolas Zippelius, a lawmaker focusing on China relations for Merz’s conservatives, said Merz may be more forceful than he lets on in public. “I would say that China and Germany can hurt each other very badly,” said Zippelius. “We must not underestimate Germany’s strong voice within the EU. And the EU has shown in the past that it has power, for example through tariffs and other measures.” Such conversations would happen in private, Zippelius added. “I don’t think it helps to take risks against each other in the open,” he said. “But in closed-door talks, you can communicate that very clearly. And there you definitely have leverage.” To that end, Merz could choose to ally itself more closely with France, which has emerged as one of the loudest voices warning that China is steadily hollowing out Europe’s industrial base while the continent is distracted by Trump. The only question is whether China would take Merz’s warnings seriously. “The leverage is there,” said Small of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “But on the Chinese side, the assessment is that Europe is not willing to use it.” Indeed, China knows the EU has backed off in the past over potential trade conflicts with Beijing in sectors such as solar panels and telecommunications due to fear of Chinese retaliation. As Merz and other European leaders look for an answer, time is on China’s side, added Small. “Unless there is more serious concerted action on the European side, China will calculate that it can get away with exactly what it’s doing at the moment and all of these problems will continue,” he said. Nette Nöstlinger contributed to this report.

BRUSSELS — European Parliament members on Monday slammed the Spanish government for using Huawei to store judicial wiretaps, with one leading lawmaker warning Madrid is putting its “crown jewels” at risk. The Spanish government has drawn criticism since the summer after it awarded a multimillion euro contract to Huawei for the storage of judicial wiretaps — a move that led the United States to threaten to cease intelligence sharing with Madrid. The outcry over Spain’s use of the Chinese tech giant for sensitive services lays bare how Europe continues to grapple with how to secure its digital systems against security threats. The European Union considers Huawei to be a high-risk supplier and wants to crack down on countries that still afford it broad market access. The EU proposed new draft cybersecurity legislation last month that, if approved, would force EU member countries to kick Huawei out of their telecoms networks, after years of trying to get capitals to ban the Chinese vendor voluntarily.  Lawmakers from several political groups said Spain’s contract with the Chinese tech giant could endanger the EU as a whole.  “We cannot operate in a union where one of the states actively strips high-risk vendors from its networks while another entrusts them with the crown jewels of its law enforcement,” said Markéta Gregorová, a Czech Pirate Party lawmaker who is part of the Greens group. Gregorová leads negotiations on a cyber bill that would give the EU the power to force Huawei and other — often Chinese — suppliers out of critical infrastructure in Europe. “When you introduce a high-risk vendor … we do not just risk a localized data breach, we risk poisoning the well of European intelligence sharing,” she said on Monday. Juan Ignacio Zoido Álvarez, a member of Spain’s center-right opposition party, said the decision puts “the entirety of the EU at risk.” The Spanish government has defended the contract it struck for storing wiretaps. Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a statement that the government had awarded a contract to “European companies,” which then bought storage products. “There is no risk to security, technological and legal sovereignty, nor is there any foreign interference or threat to the custody of evidence,” the ministry said. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told the Spanish parliament last September that Telefónica, the country’s telecom champion, operated a state surveillance system called SITEL and that storage “cabinets” had been integrated into that system.   Bloomberg reported last July that Huawei equipment is not used for classified information, with one government official saying the storage “represents a minor part of a watertight, audited, isolated and certified system.” On Monday, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, a prominent member of the European Parliament for the Socialists and Democrats group and a member of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchéz’s party in Spain, defended Madrid’s contract and pushed back on EU moves to intervene on the issue. In terms of “security, espionage, or violation of technological sovereignty,” there is “no risk,” Aguilar said. Huawei did not respond to a request for comment.

LONDON — Labour peer Margaret Hodge is among the candidates vying to be the next chair of the media regulator Ofcom. Hodge, who was the MP for Barking until 2024 and has supported stricter social media regulation, was among the candidates interviewed for the role last week, according to two people familiar with the appointment process, granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record.   Hodge, a veteran Labour politician who has spoken about her experience of online abuse, would be another political appointment to the £120,000-a-year role at a crucial time for the independent regulator. The previous Conservative government appointed Michael Grade, a Tory peer, as chair in 2022. His term ends on April 26, and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, which is leading the recruitment process, hopes to announce his replacement before then. The interview panel, which is made up of civil servants and independent members, will now hand Technology Secretary Liz Kendall a shortlist of approved candidates. Former Conservative Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright is also in the running, according to the same two people quoted above. Wright, one of the architects of the Online Safety Act (OSA), has been critical of Ofcom’s implementation of the flagship law. The Telegraph newspaper has reported Channel 4’s former Chairman Ian Cheshire is also on the shortlist.  Kendall has also been critical of Ofcom for not implementing parts of the OSA quickly enough. She warned last November that it risks losing public trust.  Ofcom, which also regulates TV and radio, is about to embark on a major review of the telecoms sector, which is being upended by developments in artificial intelligence and satellite technology.  A DSIT spokesperson said they were unable to comment on the recruitment process. Hodge did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

MUNICH, Germany — U.S. officials have countered Europe’s push for technology sovereignty from America with a clear message: It’s China you should worry about, not us. The European Union is rolling out a strategy to reduce its reliance on foreign technology suppliers. Donald Trump’s return to office has put the focus on American cloud giants, companies like Elon Musk’s Starlink and X and others — with European officials increasingly concerned that Washington has too much control over Europe’s digital infrastructure. As political leaders and security and intelligence officials met in Germany for the Munich Security Conference, Washington sought to calm nerves. The idea that Trump can pull the plug on the internet is not “a credible argument,” the United States’ National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross told an audience Thursday. Europe and the U.S. “face the same sort of threat and the same threat actors,” said Cairncross, who advises Trump on cybersecurity policy. Rather than weaning off America, wean off China, he said: “There is a clean tech stack. It is primarily American. And then there is a Chinese tech stack.” Claiming that U.S. tech is as risky as Chinese tech is “a giant false equivalency,” according to Cairncross. “Personal data doesn’t get piped to the state in the United States,” he said, referencing concerns that the Beijing government has laws requiring firms to hand over data for Chinese surveillance and espionage purposes. The attempt to quell concerns is notable even if it may not change the direction of travel in Europe. The European Commission wants to boost homegrown technology with a “tech sovereignty” package this spring. It presented a cybersecurity proposal in January that, if approved, could be used to root out suppliers that pose security risks — including from America. “We want to ensure that we don’t have risky dependencies when it comes to critical sectors,” the Commission’s Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen told POLITICO in an interview in Munich on Friday. “We see this in AI, quantum technologies and semiconductors — we must have a certain level of capacity ourselves.” Europe’s attempt to pivot away from U.S. dependencies, while not new, has gained support in past months as the transatlantic alliance creaked. The POLITICO Poll conducted in February showed far more people described the U.S. as an unreliable ally than a reliable one across four countries, including half the adults polled in Germany and 57 percent in Canada. “The leadership claim of the U.S. is being challenged, perhaps already lost,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told the conference Friday. REBALANCING ACT Europe is still working out what a forceful attempt to build technology sovereignty would look like, as it reforms everything from industrial policy programs to procurement rules and data and cybersecurity requirements on companies and governments. Top European cyber officials in Munich told POLITICO that technological sovereignty does not mean cutting ties with trusted partners. Vincent Strubel, director of France’s cybersecurity agency ANSSI, said sovereignty means avoiding being bound by rules set elsewhere. “It’s about identifying what leverage non-European countries may have based on the technology they provide,” Strubel said in an interview. “It’s not about being friendly or unfriendly with any country — it’s about recognizing that we [currently] have no say in how that leverage might be used.” Claudia Plattner, head of Germany’s cybersecurity agency BSI, said, “We need to become more independent. We need to strengthen our local and European industries … We need to become digitally successful — that is essential to economic strength and to security.” The BSI plans to test sovereign cloud offerings from several large tech companies, including AWS and Google. The testing will examine whether European services can operate independently from parent systems and will help inform Germany’s national cloud strategy. Critics of Europe’s efforts to turn away from the U.S. say it is bound to lead to worse security. Christopher Ahlberg, the CEO of threat intelligence firm Recorded Future, said he understood that things like military command and control must remain national, “but if you start choosing sub-par cyber products just to achieve sovereignty, you’re going to be target No. 1 because threat actors will discover the vulnerabilities.” COMMON GROUND ON CHINA While tensions persist over the U.S.’s dominant position, Washington and European capitals have common ground when it comes to caution over Chinese tech. The EU is drafting legal requirements to cut out Chinese tech from critical supply chains including telecom networks, energy grids, security systems and railways. That move drew the ire of the Chinese government, which called it “blatant protectionism.” Many of the measures mirror what U.S. authorities have done in the past decade. “The U.S. understands what national security is. They don’t want to hear: ‘The U.S. is a threat.’ But they understand resilience,” said Sébastien Garnault, a prominent French cyber policy consultant. Trump “is putting America first, and the same goes in cyberspace,” Cairncross said. But, he added, “we don’t want it to be America alone. We want that partnership.” Laurens Cerulus contributed reporting.

KYIV — Two days after Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched Starlink verification and blocked unverified terminals in Ukraine, the pace of Russia’s offensive appears to be slowing, a Ukrainian military official told POLITICO. “Currently, such a trend is indeed observed. But it will be necessary to monitor further whether it will continue, whether there will be other factors,” said the official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. “However, at some places, Ukrainian military Starlinks which have not been registered yet have also been disconnected. But the registration process is ongoing,” the official added. “In fact, they [Russian units] have problems now. They are like blind kittens,” a Ukrainian General Staff commanders told POLITICO separately, also granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. On Friday, Russian military bloggers, who in the past have praised Musk for his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric, complained about the mass failure of terminals for the Starlink satellite service that began on the evening on Feb. 4 on the frontline in Ukraine.  “The Russian Armed Forces used gray Starlinks to organize communications at the front. The danger is that it was an easy way compared to doing something new, pulling an ever-breaking optical fiber, setting up ‘bridges,’ or even working en masse with digital stations to organize the transmission of small data packets,” Russian pro-war military Telegram channel Dva Mayora, said in a post on Thursday. “Gray” Starlink terminals are ones that are not authorized or verified. “Now it’s either the old-fashioned way, or they’ll come up with something of their own urgently,” the bloggers added, blaming Musk for assisting the Ukrainian army. Earlier this week, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, in coordination with SpaceX, launched verification of Starlink terminals to protect civilians from Russian drones, which have begun illegally using Starlink connections during massive attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid. “This move is in direct response to Russian forces’ illicit use of Starlink terminals. Russian drones equipped with Starlink are difficult to intercept: They fly at low altitudes, are resistant to electronic warfare, and can be piloted in real time from long distances,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said in a statement sent to POLITICO.  “Soon, only registered and authorized terminals will operate within Ukraine; any unverified devices will be deactivated,” the ministry added, urging all commanders of Ukrainian army units, as well as civilians, to rapidly register their Starlink terminal serial numbers with different Ukrainian state organs. It took only a day until the massive Starlink shutdown at the war front. “Russians have not just a problem on the fronts; the enemy has a disaster. All command of the troops is collapsing. Assault operations have been stopped in many areas. Our troops also reported problems with those who did not promptly submit lists for private Starlinks. The processing is ongoing,” Sergii Bezkrestnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said in a post on Facebook. Many Ukrainian units indeed reported that their Starlink terminals, even once registered, have stopped working, endangering drone operations and evacuations. However, the situation has started changing for the better. “Some of the blocked Starlinks are already working; the crews are carrying out their tasks. I expect that they will all be working very soon,” said Serhii Kostinskyi, commander of the Ukrainian drone unit “Serafims.” Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov thanked Musk personally for Starlink’s shutdown for the Russian army in Ukraine, saying the tech billionaire once again came through at a pivotal moment. “You’re most welcome,” Musk replied via X. Musk’s decision to rapidly activate Starlink terminals in February 2022 has made Starlink connection vital for not only the Ukrainian army, but also for civilian and energy infrastructure. More than 50,000 terminals have been deployed across the country since the war began, provided through donors, international partners and Ukraine’s ministry of digital transformation. In addition, hundreds of thousands of terminals have been purchased by Ukrainians to support civilian needs and the national energy sector. These terminals have enabled rapid restoration of communications in newly liberated areas and ensured continuity for emergency services, government operations and critical infrastructure. Starlink is used by internet providers and telecom operators, medical staff and military personnel, teachers and volunteers, journalists and IT companies, and rescue teams operating at resilience centers, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.

MARSEILLE, France — Violence at a drug trafficking hotspot in the social housing complex next to Orange’s headquarters in Marseille forced the telecoms giant to lock its forest-green gates and order its thousands of employees to work from home. The disruption to such a recognizable company — one that gives its name to the city’s iconic football venue — became a fresh symbol of how drug trafficking and insecurity are reshaping politics ahead of municipal elections. In a recent poll, security ranked among voters’ top concerns, forcing candidates across the spectrum to pitch competing responses to the drug trade. “The number one theme is security,” center-right candidate Martine Vassal told POLITICO. “In the field, what I hear most often are people who tell me that they no longer travel in the heart of the city for that reason.” French political parties are watching the contest closely for clues about the broader battles building toward the 2027 presidential race. In many ways, Marseille is a microcosm of France as a whole, reflecting the country’s wider demographics and its biggest political battles. The city is diverse. Multicultural and low-income neighborhoods that tend to support the hard left abut conservative suburbs that have swung to the far right in recent years. As in much of France, support for the political center in Marseille is wobbling.  The left-wing incumbent Benoît Payan remains a slight favorite in the March contest, but Franck Allisio, the candidate for the far-right National Rally, is just behind, with both men polling at around 30 percent. The issues at play strike at the heart of Marseille’s identity: its notorious drug trade, entrenched poverty and failure to seize on the competitive advantages of a young, sun-drenched city strategically perched on the Mediterranean. Whichever candidate can articulate a platform that speaks to Marseille’s local realities while addressing anxieties shared across France will be well positioned to take city hall — and to provide their party with a potential blueprint for the 2027 presidential campaign.  SECOND CITY  Marseille has always had something of a little-brother complex with Paris, a resentment that goes beyond the football rivalry of Paris Saint-Germain and Olympique de Marseille. Many in the city regard the French capital as a distant power center that tries to impose its own solutions on Marseille without sufficiently consulting local experts.   People in Marseilles pay tribute to murdered Mehdi Kessaci. 20, whose brother is a prominent anti drug trafficking campaigner, and protest against trafficking, Nov. 22, 2025. | Clement Mahoudeau/AFP via Getty Images “Paris treats Marseille almost like a colony,” said Allisio. “A place you visit, make promises to — without any guarantee the money will ever be spent.”  When it comes to drug trafficking and security, leaders across the political spectrum agree that Paris is prescribing medicine that treats the symptoms of the crisis, not the cause.  Violence associated with the drug trade was thrust back in the spotlight in November with the killing of 20-year-old Mehdi Kessaci. Authorities are investigating the crime as an act of intimidation. Mehdi’s brother Amine Kessaci is one of the city’s most prominent anti-trafficking campaigners, rising to prominence after their half-brother — who was involved in the trade — was killed several years earlier.  President Emmanuel Macron, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez and Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin all visited Marseille in the wake of Kessaci’s killing, outlining a tough-on-crime agenda to stop the violence and flow of drugs.  Locals stress that law-and-order investments must be matched with funding for public services. Unless authorities improve the sluggish economy that has encouraged jobless youths to turn to the drug trade, the problem will continue.  “Repression alone is not efficient,” said Kaouther Ben Mohamed, a former social worker turned activist. “If that was the case, the drug trade wouldn’t have flourished like it did.” Housing is another issue, with many impoverished residents living in dangerous, dilapidated buildings. “We live in a shit city,” said Mahboubi Tir, a tall, broad-shouldered young man with a rugby player’s physique. “We’re not safe here.”   Tir spent a month in a coma and several more in a hospital last April after he was assaulted during a parking dispute. His face was still swollen and distorted when he spoke to POLITICO in December about how the incident reshaped his relationship with the city he grew up in.  “I almost died, and I was angry at the city,” said Tir, who suffers from memory loss and has only a vague recollection of what led to the assault, as he sipped coffee in the backroom office of a tiny, left-leaning grassroots political party where he volunteers, Citizen Ambition.  SECURITY PROBLEM To what extent Marseille’s activist groups can bring about change in a city whose struggles have lasted for decades remains to be seen, but the four leading candidates for mayor share a similar diagnosis. They all believe the lurid crime stories making national headlines are a byproduct of a lack of jobs and neglected public services — and that the French state’s responses miss the mark. Rather than relying on harsher punishments as a deterrent, they argue the state should prioritize local policing and public investment. When Payan announced his candidacy for reelection, he pledged free meals for 15,000 students to get them back in school and to double the number of local cops as part of a push for more community policing. Allisio’s platform puts the emphasis on security-related spending: increased video surveillance, more vehicles for local police and the creation of “specialized units to combat burglary and public disorder.” Vassal — the center-right backed by the conservative Les Républicains and parties aligned with Macron — has similarly put forward a proposal to arm fare enforcers in public transport. Both Allisio and Vassal are calling for unspecified spending cuts while preserving basic services provided at the local level like schools, public transportation and parks and recreation. Vassal, who is polling third, said she would make public transportation free for residents younger 26 to travel across the spread-out city. She accuses the current administration of having delivered an insufficient number of building permits, slowing the development of new housing and office buildings and thus the revitalization of Marseille’s most embattled areas — a trend she pledged to reverse. Both Vassal and Allisio are advocating for less local taxes on property to boost small businesses and create new jobs. Allisio has also put forward a proposal to make parking for less 30 minutes free to facilitate deliveries and quick stops to buy products. The outlier — at least when it comes to public safety — is Sébastien Delogu, a disciple of three-time hard-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Though Delogu is polling fourth at 14 percent, he can’t be counted out, given that Mélenchon won Marseille in the first round of the last two presidential elections. Though Delogu acknowledges that crime is a problem, he doesn’t want to spend more money on policing. He instead proposes putting money that other candidates want to spend on security toward poverty reduction, housing supply and the local public health sector. Whoever wins, however, will have to grapple with an uncomfortable truth. Aside from local police responsible for public tranquility and health, policing and criminal justice matters are largely managed at the national level. The solution to Marseille’s problems will depend, to no small extent, on the outcome of what happens next year in Paris.